BBC Presenter
Now, Julian Assange who was released on bail yesterday says WikiLeaks will continue to publish the leaked US diplomatic cables, despite the pressure being applied to him.
He spoke to journalists this lunchtime at Ellingham Hall in Norfolk, where he is staying until his extradition hearing.
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks
Over the last 4 years we have published material from over 120 countries. It is our normal business to publish banks - information about banks - and we have been attacked. Primarily not by government - primarily, in fact, not by the US government (or things are heating up now) - but, in fact, by banks: banks from Dubai, banks from Switzerland, banks from the United States, banks from the UK. So, yes, of course, we are continuing to release material about banks.
Reporter (male)
Julian, you were saying before the WikiLeaks website is under attack, can you expand on that a bit more. Eight-five percent of traffic proved [??] was trying to close it down, is that correct?
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks
Well, I have been out of touch. I have been in a black hole for 10 days.
I received - the last newspaper I read before coming here this morning - [cough] - was the London Express from last Thursday, so perhaps you are talking about something that I am unaware of.
But over 85% of our economic resources are spent with dealing with attacks: dealing with technical attacks, dealing with political attacks, dealing with legal attacks - not doing journalism. And that, if you like, is attacks upon the best quality investigative journalism, and 85% tax rate on that kind of economic activity, whereas people who are producing celebrity pieces for Vanity Fair have a much lower tax rate.
Reporter (male)
And how is it easy to look after the website when you're staged up in a house in Norfolk. Can you operate from here?
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks
Well, people like to present WikiLeaks as just me and my backpack. It is not true. We're a relatively large organisation. The permanent staff is relatively small [whereas?] in the Cablegate we had about 24 full-time staff [cough].
But it is resilient. It is designed to withstand decapitation attacks, and our publishing rate actually increased over the time that I was in solitary confinement and we see even today, [in] our British media partner, The Guardian, [the] latest story coming out of these cables. India's accused of systemic use of torture. Over 1,000 reports made to the Red Cross. Over 600 of those concerning serious torture in Kashmir, by the Indian government [inaudible].
[end clip 2:55 / 2:58]
Picked a random short video from 2010, to check out what was going on circa the Assange arrest.
Really surprised to see the clip is about bank attacks, rather than a massive US government take-down via authorities in Sweden.
What, how could I get it so wrong?
After 5 years of detention, including a 3 year siege, there's more to this than bank attacks. But maybe that wasn't apparent at the time? Don't know. Haven't seen enough 2010 footage to judge. Don't know how much of that sort of thing I'll be looking at, as it's quite time consuming - if you bother to make a record of it.
So, US diplomatic cables were being published at the time.
Interesting how the organisation is under constant attacks, chewing up enormous resources.
What's appalling is that proper journalism is taxed at a huge 85% rate, where as fluff is taxed at some lower level.
Eighty-five percent tax on any organisation sounds more like robbery than tax to me.
EU-NATO IMPERIALISM ❌ 